Late colour in the garden

My garden is quite "zen" in that it has a lot of evergreen things in it, and (unlike the tradtional English garden) not very many flowers. So the onset of autumn comes slowly, but the signs are unmistakably here!

The virginia creeper is turning wonderful shades of red, what's left of it. It was covering the whole of one side of the house and hiding the lovely squared flint walls, so it got the chop in the spring. Also the leaves were such a nuisance when they fell on my metre square bit of gravel. Not a very good reason, but there's plenty left to grow again in other parts of the garden!

Sedums - I only have a couple of plants they but will give a hint of colour for a long while.

One of my acers thinks it spring, and has thrown out some new leaves much to my surprise!

Pruning the weigela early on means that, like the books say, I have a late flowering to enjoy.

A tiny gladioli and a few cerinthe that suddently sprang up midsummer but managed to put on enough growth in a few weeks to flower. I love the blue almost succulent leaves and the elegant tiny mauve flowers that dangle like bells. A welcome return for an annual I thought I had lost. Oh and a young euphorbia that seems to have grown like weeds, I never had any at all in the garden till two years ago and know they are everywhere.

I had to go and look at the name tag for this one. Schizostylis kaffir lily it says. I bought it last year at some village summer fete, and hadnt got a clue what it was. How nice that its late flowering, and so enjoyable.

And finally my lovely crab apples (I have kept the husband from them in his quest for things to make jam or jelly - he has been given so many apples and plums and damsons from neighbours that I hope he has forgotten these outside the patio window) And the cheeful nasturtiums finally made an appearance. Mind you I planted them late!

Lets hope we have a long autumn - the gardeners who know say that September was the time that the garden used to shut down, but recent weather trends mean that we have another month at least of flowering and fruiting ahead of us. Good!